I awoke to the tilting sensation you get when somebody sits on your bed. I rolled over and blinked until my vision worked through the darkness to my father, who sat there in his blue work shirt and jeans, grinning the soft grin he saved for his daughters.
Jacob had a brown mop of hair and a round figure. I figured him to be ten years old. He had that ten-year-old smell, like cheese crackers mixed with unbridled curiosity. And then something amazing happened. Jacob read my mind.
Set amid the dark, dingy streets of Boston where the homeless sleep on park benches or regroup in shelters to survive another day, Nick Flynn has one last opportunity to engage his father, a homeless, self-proclaimed novel writer.
Whether you grew up in New Jersey as I did, or the rural Great Plains as did author Lacy M. Johnson, one’s childhood surroundings can’t help but seep into your pores and influence the way you view the world – even if you move many miles away.
At a playground near my apartment in Boston, my children on side-by-side swings, their mother, my ex-wife, pushing our daughter while our son pumps his legs until he is higher than he intended. He asks for help slowing down, then stopping. I catch his legs and hold him steady. He laughs. Let go, he tells…
I was raised on magic. My father always had a book at hand. I grew up with words as close as blankets, as nutritious as carrots or spinach or milk. They were necessary things, inviolate.
Writing is like any relationship. You have to spend time on it and nurture it in order for it to stay healthy and grow. So it is no wonder that the longer we avoid it, the more terrifying it becomes.
Happy August! The tail end of July proved to be busy at Hippo Headquarters! Going along with the theme of last month’s issue, I was rock and rolling myself with a move from the quaint Elizabethtown, Pa. to the heart of downtown Lancaster – a much better place for a social, creative type to live…
My hands grip the steering wheel at 10 and 2, my eyes focus on the road, but my mind reels back through the years to seventh grade when holding hands was a big deal.
Instead of funding my 401K, I invest in concert tickets…. I know it seems absurd to spend money to find a way to escape from it. But I’m doing it anyway.
